


Fireflies

by lalalalalawhy



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Backstory, F/M, First Dates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-22 09:13:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9600119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalalalalawhy/pseuds/lalalalalawhy
Summary: "Magnus, what is your ideal first date?""Oh gosh. Let's see. I would say... I pick them up, you know, round-about sundown, and then we catch fireflies..."--The Adventure Zone, Ep. 54Magnus and Julia's first date.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alliterate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alliterate/gifts).



He really had very nice hands, Julia thought to herself. She was seated at her desk at the edge of the workshop, ostensibly looking over the ledgers. What she was really doing was gazing at her father’s apprentice.

He’d shown up to the shop about five months back, young and hungry and looking for work. Julia had been the one to answer the door, and she had very nearly slammed it in his face. They didn’t see a lot of strangers at the shop, and certainly not ones that loomed quite that large. His face bore a wound that was just beginning to knit together at the seams, the new pink flesh shining bright in his dark skin, but his eyes were nothing but kindness.

“Hello, traveller,” she’d said. “Are you in need of aid?”

“Not exactly,” he’d said. “I’m looking for work. I can’t read or write so well, but I have a strong back and I’m good with an axe.”

It had been the tail end of winter, and it looked like it had been hard on the boy. As big and strong as he was, his clothes were worn past the point of warmth and his boots had holes in them. As Fate would have it, Julia’s father had just thrown out his back the day before trying to move a chest of drawers.

She had invited him to share their stew that evening, her father stepping gingerly to the table and wincing as he sat. He was only to happy to offer this strapping lad room, board, and a few coins to do all the heavy lifting for a while.

It had been a long winter for everyone in the village, but that first night Magnus ate like he hadn’t seen food in weeks. Maybe he hadn’t.

Her father had healed quickly, but Magnus proved invaluable: a true artist who had nimble fingers for whittling and a broad back upon which to carry the heavy furniture. A while soon turned into a month, and then into six weeks. Now, several months into his apprenticeship, there was no longer any question of when he would leave.

Julia did not mind one bit.

She watched his hands as he carved a delicate motif of grape vines on a table leg. The knife was a favorite of his, with a blade the length of her hand, but in his hands it looked tiny. She also wondered at his dedication. It didn’t matter that this was the side of the leg that would face inwards, nearly invisible. Magnus concentrated on it, showing the same artistry he would to any other facet.

Julia dropped all pretense of looking over the ledgers and leaned back in her chair, sighing. There was nothing for it. She was smitten.

She’d begun to notice his furtive glances a few weeks ago, and in turn had caught herself staring at his hands at all sorts of inappropriate times. This was untenable.

“Hey, Magnus?” she said, grimacing at how loud her voice seemed in the quiet workshop.

“Yeah?” he asked, setting his knife down gently and turning to look at right at her. Her heart skipped a beat and a half.

Yep. Smitten.

“Do you… do you want to go out tonight?” she asked, the words spilling out of her mouth before she could second guess herself.

“Go out and do what?” he asked. He seemed genuinely curious.

“Um,” she said, hesitating. It was midsummer now, and the days were too warm but the nights were beautiful. “We could go out and… look at the stars? Catch some fireflies?”

“Oh,” Magnus said, considering. Recognition dawned on his face and he jerked his head up to look at her. She smiled at him, a little more tentatively than she’d like.

“Oh!” he said again, a goofy grin breaking out across his face. “Yeah. I’d like that.”

She grinned, too.

* * *

 

Sometimes Magnus watched Julia work at her desk in the workshop. She did the ledgers for the business, that much he knew, but it was basically wizardry to him. She could make the columns of numbers dance in a way Magnus could never understand.

She tried to explain it to him once, pointing out the numbers that represented sales and the numbers that represented the wood. They looked the same to Magnus. And besides, how could numbers mean wood.

He’d asked her that, and she’d laughed. It was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard.

“I should have said the numbers represent the _price_ of wood,” she explained. “Like how many coins it takes to buy more wood.”

Magnus almost understood. He could feel it there, like a knot in a trunk he was about to carve. But he couldn’t quite grasp the concept, and found himself instead distracted with the gap between her front teeth and the way her eyes crinkled when she smiled at him.

Julia was smart, and she was also kind. Magnus knew enough of the world to know they didn’t always walk hand in hand. He was in love with his boss’s daughter, who maybe counted as the boss herself.

He knew enough to keep that bit quiet. He was good at plenty of things: carrying heavy things, making drawers slide smoothly, finding the thing inside the wood that the wood wanted to become (the big things wanted to be chairs, the small things often wanted to be ducks), and not showing his boss he was in love with her.

That didn’t mean it was easy. He tried to limit his glances to times when her head was bent over her work, her hair exploding up like a volcano of curls. He spent more time inside the workshop than he needed to, especially now that the weather was warm. He could just as easily carve outside, and have less cleanup for later, but then he wouldn’t be able to look up and see her sitting there, working.

Sometimes she caught his eye and smiled.

He would have been fine if that was all it ever was. A glance exchanged here, a stolen smile there, a life of hard work and wooden ducks. It would have been enough just to be near her. It would be a nice life, a quiet life.

Then she asked him to go catch fireflies with her, and it was like an orchestra started playing out of nowhere.

* * *

 

Julia brought a jar, but it only lasted a few moments. They easily caught their first firefly, grinning at each other in triumph as they closed the lid. As soon as it started knocking against the glass trying to get out, they shared a stricken glance and Magnus quickly unscrewed the lid. After that, the jar lay empty at the base of the willow tree. Neither could stand to see the poor things flashing all alone in isolation.

Magnus caught fireflies methodically, carefully ushering them into his cupped hands and then holding them still until Julia could come over and see. Julia was much more haphazard, dashing from flickering glimmer to flickering glimmer and catching only one to every three of Magnus’s. More often than not she lost them because they tickled her palm, which made her shriek with laughter and release them.

Magnus sat back and watched her dash back and forth in the meadow, absentmindedly plucking at the grass. He was smiled at her unbridled joy.

Julia, gasping for breath, collapsed against him in a heap. He chuckled and let himself be knocked down, laying back carefully, so she ended up in a comfortable position, resting her head on his belly.

The two of them lay in the meadow under the stars, as the fireflies blinked around them. The moment stretched forever, perfectly. The two of them, always in this meadow, stretched against each other, breathing in and out, perfectly content.

It was Julia who finally broke the spell.

“What do you think fireflies think of the moon?” she asked.

Magnus glanced at her. Her eyes were still trained on the night sky, but a smile played at the corners of her mouth.

“What?” he asked.

“Well, fireflies probably think the stars are other fireflies, maybe their cousins. But they're too far away to talk to, or maybe they speak a different language. Then you have the moon, which is bigger than a firefly, much bigger, but it doesn't flicker.”

She closed one eye and held up her thumb toward the moon, sticking the tip of her tongue between her teeth. She wiggled her thumb back and forth, simulating a firefly’s staccato rhythms.

Magnus was struck dumb by her beauty for what must be the thousandth time. He could feel his heart swell inside his chest.

She turned onto her side and faced him, cushioning her head with her arm. Her eyes glowed bright with moonlight.

“Maybe they just think the moon is always yelling,” she said.

Magnus boggled for a moment, and then started laughing.

“Julia. You're amazing,” Magnus said. “I would never think of that in a million years.”

She met his eyes and grinned up at him. “You're no slouch yourself,” she said, tapping his chest with her forefinger. “I'm so glad you came to stay with us.”

Magnus looked deep into Julia’s eyes. His hand rose, unbidden, and he gently ran his fingers down her cheek. He took a deep breath.

Magnus rushed in.

“Julia, I love you. I've loved you since the first night I met you. You are amazing and wonderful and smart and beautiful.”

Whatever he meant to say next was cut off. Julia reached up and grabbed face, bringing him into a deep kiss.

For once, he wasn't the only one who rushed in.

Later, they would tell her father, and work out the particulars of an engagement. Later they would walk back to the workshop, hand in hand, giggling all the way.

For now there was only the moment: the kiss, each other's arms, and the calm glow of the moonlight and the fireflies.

**Author's Note:**

> Much thanks to beta readers Mansion and Sophie. Also, "Magnus definitely knows how to do the thing where you put a blade of grass between your thumbs so it works like a reed and you make a whistley humming sound," writes Sophie. This is now canon.


End file.
